Waffles with wine cream

This combination is a very old family classic.

I bought fresh yeast for Christmas to bake some waffles, but eating cookies, stollen and desserts prevented that.
I checked the package of yeast yesterday and it was good until end of this week. 6 eggs were left in the larder too and to find a bottle of wine was no problem at all.

Every time you use yeast, you have to consider a time span where the yeast does its work. 40 min in this case.
I used the time to cook Mom's favourite wine sauce. It is more like a cream, because it is thickened through cornstarch. Since it is cold outside, I placed the cream outside to cool down until the waffles were ready.

Recipe for 4:
250 ml whole milk
20 g fresh yeast
125 g butter
100 g sugar
1 pinch vanilla
1 pinch salt
400 g flour
4 free range eggs.

Combine tepid milk wit 40 g of sugar and the yeast and stir well and let it sit 5 min. Add the rest of the ingredients and make a batter. This has to rest covered for 40 min. Then start baking immediately.

Recipe for the sauce/cream:
50 g cornstarch
2 eggs
110 g sugar
500 ml white wine
250 ml water

Combine sugar, starch, eggs and halve of the water in a bowl and mix well until you have no lumps.
Heat up the rest of the water with the wine until it comes near boiling, pull the pot of the heat and stir in the mix.
Back on medium high heat and cook until very thickened and the starchy taste is gone.

Buttermilk marinated Chicken Wings

The best way to get really juicy chicken wings.

The acid in the buttermilk breaks down the protein and that makes it so good.

24 hours is a good time to soak them.
Get them out and use a large bowl with flour, dried onion powder, smoked paparika, salt and pepper.

I used a combo of deep frying and oven baking. That way I made sure the wings were cooked through.

A bit Hoisin sauce and roasted sesame seeds completed the flavour.

Recipe for 3:
12 chicken wings
500 ml buttermilk
2 tsp dried onion powder
1 tsp smoked paprika
250 g flour
Salt and pepper
2 tbsp Hoisin sauce
Sesame seeds

Soak the wings and keep them in the fridge.
Heat the oil in the fryer to 180 C - fry for 4 min
Heat the oven to 180 C - bake for 20 min

Beetroot Risotto with Goatcheese

Fresh beetroots are a typical winter veggie. They keep well when stored in the cold. It is a mess to peel them, but they are very healthy.

Risotto is one of my favourite kind of dishes and there are so many ways to make them tasty. This risotto has a spectacular colour. Goat cheese with honey and rosemary is a wonderful company to it.
Keeping the dish meat free.

recipe for 2:
1 large beetroot
2 shallots
2 cloves of garlic
150 g Carneroli risotto rice
600 ml chicken stock
100 ml white wine
4 tbsp Appenzeller cheese
1 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp butter
1 tbsp honey
3 tbsp pumpkin seeds toasted
1 twig of rosemary
100  g Goat cheese cream cheese
salt and pepper

Peel the beetroot - ware gloves!.
Cut off 4 slices 1 cm thick. Cube the rest into 2 cm.
Chop onions and garlic.
I 1 tbsp of butter start them and add the cubes of the beetroot. Get them a good head start and season with salt and pepper.  Cooking them for 5 min is a good idea, they wont get too soft in the cooking process later. Add the rice and coat it well.

Pour in the wine and let it cook down, add a ladle of stock then an other after it cooked down.
Grate the cheese and toast the pumpkin seeds dry in a pan.
In the same pan with some oil fry the slices of beetroot. Season them and short before they are done, glaze them with a little honey.
Mix the goatchesse with chopped rosemary and form into balls and drizzle with honey.
When the risotto is done, add butter and cheese and serve with a cheese ball each and sprinkle over the pumpkin seeds.

Tantanmen Ramen

Japanese Ramen Chinese Style.

This is not the traditional way of Ramen noodles.  Less soupy and a good amount of kick. So many versions of the recipe can be found on the Internet. The main ingredients are the same, but you can change a lot. As always I did it my own way.

recipe for 2:
240 g sausage meat or pork mince
2 spring onions
4 cm fresh ginger
1 tbsp oil
2 pok choy
2 eggs soft boiled
600 ml chicken stock
2 servings of dried ramen noodles
2- 3 tsp Sambal olek
2 tbsp miso paste
3 tbsp Mirin
2 tbsp light soy sauce
2 tsp tahini
1 tbsp black sesame seeds
1 tbsp sesame seeds
1 tsp dark sesame oil

In a casserole heat up the oil, toss in the meat and use 4 chop sticks to make kind of a soboro (fine mince)
Add spring onion white and ginger and cook more.
Mix Mirin with Sambal and Miso and out 2/3 into the meat mix. Add half of the soy sauce. Set aside.

Boil the chicken stock and toss in the pok choys to blanch for 2 min, get them out and out in the Ramen noodles and cook them for 2-3 min.
Mix a bit of broth with the tahini and crush the sesame seeds in a pestle and mortar and add.
In the bowls split the rest of the sambal mix, add some of the tahini broth mix and get the noodles in, stir well, add some meat and stir again.
Top of with a bit of broth, but not as much as you would with ramen soup. Heap the rest of the mince and the pok choy on top and add the egg.

Egg Salad

I have a bunch of organic eggs sitting on the counter top. They should have gone into some sweet stuff last weekend, but I had no time to prepare that.

Sourdough rye bread is a good base for a creamy salad and I checked the fresh stuff still available in the veggie drawer of my fridge.

Some celery stalks still in mint condition. A small can of sweet corn and an everlasting package of Turkish Kaymak. Not lasting much longer, it was short before reaching the expiration date.

Recipe:
5 eggs
2 stalks celery
1 small can sweet corn
3 tbsp Kaymak
1 tbsp double cream
1 tbsp water
2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tbsp rose coloured balsamic vinegar
1 pinch of Baharat
1 pinch of smoked paprika
Salt and pepper
1 pinch dried salad herbs

Cook the eggs medium firm, cool down and chop
Cut the celery into very fine dice
Drain the sweet corn
Make the dressing

Two Dinners with one ready made part each

Sometimes I need my fix of ready made food too. In these cases I try to combine them with a fresh home made product.

I love the Swabian filled pasta -Maultaschen. You can make them yourself from scratch, but that takes a good amount of time. There a a few products in supermarket shelves that are of good quality.
I had them with lovely creamy spinach. Just blanched spinach leaves, chopped up and in a pan with a shallot and 2 cloves of garlic and lots of nutmeg and double cream. So tasty.
The leftovers went into my lunch box for the next day.

The second dinner was a beef shortrib. It was sitting in its package in my fridge since fall.
It had to go into the oven to heat through.
I placed 500 g of seasoned carrots along side and that was the fresh part of the dish.

Porkello Tonnato

This is the pork version of the classic Italian dish, Vitello Tonnato.

I had some pork roast in thin slices. Why not top it with tuna.

I love capers and I was looking forward to have them on top of pork meat.

I wanted to eat it with toasted rye bread, I discovered it had a not so lovely sheen of green - mould. And no other bread at home.

Recipe for 2:
56 g can of tuna
1/2 clove of garlic
1 anchovis filet
2 tsp capers
2 tbsp raprseed oil
60 g creme graiche
Lemon juice
160 g pork roast cooked

I decided not to make a traditional mayonaise, I did not use egg to bind.
If you do not like the strong taste of anchovis, just use a little of it.
This tonnato is as creamy as the mayo one, but a bit more savoury.
The combination with pork is good.